In connection with the 800-anniversary celebration of the alleged descent from heaven of the Danish flag, Dannebrog, at Lyndanise [Tallinn] during the Danish conquest of Estonia in 1219 a number of books and articles were written, some more scholarly than others. In the present text the relevant sources of the Danish involvement in the Baltic crusades leading up to the conquest are discussed afresh. That involves first of all the only source to mention the descent of Dannebrog from Heaven accompanied by a voice promising Danish victory, not at Lyndanise, though, and not in 1219, but during a battle in 1208 at Viljandi in central Estonia!
In the article the validity of this source, only known in a copy from the 1520s, is positively evaluated as far as the date, place and context are concerned. This is done on the basis of contemporary sources, mainly letters to and from the popes Innocent III and Honorius III, showing a much more active Danish involvement in Livonia and Estonia from 1206 onwards than Henry of Livonia want us to believe in his Chronicle. Furthermore, it is argued, based on the evidence in Henry’s Chronicle, that, while the German missionaries and crusaders operated in the sign of the Virgin Mary, the Danes did so in the sign of the Cross. Also the continued use of the Cross symbol in Estonian and especially Tallinnian context, long after Danish rule had ceased, is seen as confirming the strong link between the Cross symbol and the Danish mission and conquest. This supports the idea of Estonia as the Land of the Cross, where Bishop Albert of Riga in an address to Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council, according to Henry, claimed Livonia to be the Land of the Mother, where the Holy Land was the Land of the Son.
Postscriptum
Among the many writings, resulting from the anniversary celebration, only a few focuses on the Danish crusades and their immediate aftermath. Since it will probably take at least 25 years, hopefully more, before another anniversary will be celebrated and scholars once more will be asked to comment on the legend of the descending Dannebrog, I should like to draw attention to two text which are of immediate interest with regard to the conquest and the legend of the descending Dannebrog.
Most important is a Danish-Estonian collaborative work, published in both Danish and Estonian versions. Two Danish historians, Carsten Selch Jensen and Janus Møller Jensen focus on the written sources while archaeologist Marika Mägi and art historian Kersti Markus pictures the local environments in which the Danish conquest took place. From a Danish perspective the Estonian contribution to the book is especially interesting. See ‘Da Danskerne fik Dannebrog. Historien om de dansk-estiske relationer omkring år 1200’ / ‘Taanlaste ristisõda Eestis’, Tallinn (Argo) 2019.
A much smaller and rather puzzling text is presented by the Danish historian Johnny Grandjean Gøgsig Jakobsen, available here,
https://www.academia.edu/39788011/Tallinn_-_eller_hvor_det_nu_var_henne_at_Dannebrog_faldt_ned,
The main theme of the paper turns out to be a toponymic analysis of the surroundings of the battle in 1219, which in itself is indeed interesting. However, for some reason Jakobsen decided to embed this analysis within some rather lighthearted comments on the where and when of Dannebrog’s fall from Heaven. This leads him to the conclusion that it is for each and anyone to decide whether to believe the event happened in 1219 at Lyndanise or in 1208 at Viljandi. Jakobsen is well aware that it is the Franciscan Peder Olsen, who in the 1520s both copied the source about the battle in 1208 at Viljandi with the descending Dannebrog and at the same time expressed doubts with regard to the dating. Jakobsen assumes Peder Olsen must have had corrective knowledge. This knowledge, Jakobsen thinks, Olsen may have had from Henry of Livonia’s Chronicle, which, however, forces Jakobsen to admit that Henry has no mention of a descending Dannebrog!
We are, in other words, back to the fact that only one source mentions Dannebrog’s descent and without that one source, we would never have had reason to celebrate a legend of Dannebrog descending over Lyndanise in 1219. The reason for Peder Olsen to doubt the dating was quite rightly that he did indeed have ‘corrective knowledge’ in the sense that, while he had no further evidence of Danish activity in Estonia in 1208, he did know from some of the Danish annals, he was acquainted with, that the Danes led a large fleet to Estonia in 1219 ending in its conquest. It is also quite clear from his text that that was what made him doubt the date 1208. This he almost spelled out in both places he quoted the 1208 source. Thus there was no need for his knowledge of Henry’s chronicle, which he certainly did not have.